I Wear Girls’ Clothes

There are things that we think will never happen to us. And I don’t mean giant disasters or a fatal medical diagnoses. No, I mean the small and subtle changes that slowly and gradually occur over the course of our lives.

When I was in my late teenage years and early twenties, I obsessively sought out new bands and musicians. I went to concerts and spent a lot of moment on records. My mom also loved music but I couldn’t help but notice that she listened to the same musicians over and over.

I wondered at what point in her life she stopped trying to discover new artists. I naively thought that it wouldn’t happen to me. I thought I would still be going to concerts and looking for new bands for the rest of my life.

And then somewhere along the way I stopped. My taste in music and the bands that I like are somewhat frozen in time. I don’t put in the effort these days that I did when I was younger to discover new music.

This is all sounding very much “get off of my lawn” but it is what it is. Life is a lot more overwhelming than it was when I was twenty. Part of me just doesn’t have the bandwidth (no pun intended) to do anything more than just keep up with whatever life is throwing at me.

Friendships, I am sorry to say, are similar. In school it was easy to see your friends every day. When we had little responsibilities it was normal to hang out with your friends in the evenings or on weekends.

And then LIFE happens. Or life continues to happen. Or life changes.

Friends get married, friends have children, friends get new careers, their kids have school obligations… your time with your friends dwindles down. We try to keep up with each other and remain in contact… but then you realize that you haven’t seen your best friend in a year.

Besides “work friends” I have three close friends. They have been my friends for decades and have helped me through so much. They are some of the most important people in my life.

But I never see them.

It is odd for me to have such important people in my life, people closer to me than some family members that… well, don’t know about me. I suppose part of me is feeling dishonest with them. I have considered for years coming out to them. I almost did once but the moment passed. In retrospect I am glad it did.

I am meeting two of these guys in a couple of weeks for lunch. After what felt like forever in coordinating and lining up schedules and aligning the planets we have managed to find a two hour window when all three of us are free.

Whenever I make plans with these friends the feelings of being dishonest and the yearning to come out awakens. These feelings weaken as time passes and I can’t imagine I will ever come out to them but I still have them.

I haven’t come out to anyone in, goodness, ten years? I think the last person I came out to was my mom. Shortly before that it was my sisters. When I had The Talk I came out as a crossdresser. That was how I identified at the time. I mean, I suppose that’s still true as I type this in male mode save for my leggings and cardigan.

Were I to come out to anyone these days it would be as identifying as transgender. These different ways to identify would require different words, different conversations. And likely different questions and reactions.

Although I have no plans to come out to anyone else in my life, I still think about the right way to do it… if I had to. Of course, there is no right way and instead there are countless wrong ways to have The Talk… it’s just that some ways are, well, less wrong than others.

I suppose being honest and gentle is how you would begin.

How we come out is likely influenced by WHO we come out to… and WHY we come out. When I came out to my wife when we were dating I felt that she needed to know who I am and that despite my best efforts I wasn’t ever not going to be who I was, who I am. With my sisters I just wanted to… well, be a sister sometimes. When I came out to a roommate I was just tired of hiding and dammit I lived there too and I wanted to wear what I wanted to wear.

But with these two guys? Besides wanting to be completely honest with who I am there’s not a “goal” in mind. I don’t want them to meet up with Hannah for lunch or whatever.

And thank goodness I don’t imagine ever coming out to them because I have no idea how I would do it. These two guys are, well, guys. They are good men. They are kind and love their families. Their interests are football and other sports and cars. Conversations between them revolve around the best way to install a sink.

I don’t mean to simplify who they are. I am not trying to minimize their characters. They are two people with similar interests and have similar talents and skills so it’s not unusual for them to talk about the things they are passionate about or to ask one another for advice.

I feel a little left out at times when I have nothing to contribute to the conversation. They don’t intentionally exclude me, mind you. And honestly I am just happy to see my friends.

Coming out to cis men is not something I have ever really done. I came to my brother but it wasn’t a very deep talk. Conversations between us tend to be a little surface-y. We aren’t really close. We’re not estranged by any means and nothing “happened” that caused the rift, we just aren’t close.

My wife “gets it” as much as she can, bless her. She can relate to wanting to look beautiful, wanting to feel beautiful. She understands how an outfit can make someone feel or being drawn to a lipstick shade.

And I don’t mean to make her sound shallow. She’s not. These are just examples of some of the things that she and Hannah have in common.

My guy friends? I suppose I could be wrong as you never know who someone really is but I can’t imagine either of them relating to how I feel or who I am. I don’t even know how to put all of this into words or context.

“I wear girl clothes”.

I mean, that sounds so silly. So inadequate. It’s more than that (well, usually). It’s about identity, it’s about gender, it’s about, well, who really knows. It’s who I am. I was born this way.

But it’s true. I do wear “girl clothes”. All the time.

I feel I write rather well and I feel that I can usually get my point across but despite my abilities I am often at a loss as to how to say the right words about how to come out.

I almost envy my brother. When he came out as gay decades ago it was like “mom, I’m gay” and that was that. I mean, of course it wasn’t that simple and there were a lot of questions swirling around but everyone knew what gay meant. He liked guys.

And I don’t mean to simplify or minimize his coming out. I know it wasn’t as easy as I am making it sound.

I suppose this might be related to one feeling that their life is harder, more nuanced, and more multi-faceted but I feel that when I have come out it wasn’t as simple as my brother’s revelation. Sure, people know what it means to be gay but if I came out as bi-gender? First I would need to talk about what that word even means, and then get into everything else.

I think gender identity and sexual identity are very different. And I think that telling someone who has never be drawn to identifying as a gender other than the one they were assigned at birth is a difficult concept to relate to. People have a need to put things into context that they can understand, that they can identify with. Explaining to someone that I don’t believe in gender norms but I believe in gender identities sounds simple… until you do it.

The tricky part is HOW to do it.

Love, Hannah